Wonder Woman Historia - The Amazons #2 // Review
A history of DC’s Amazons continues in the second installment of Wonder Woman Historia - The Amazons. Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick crafts a clever stretch of heroic legend that wouldn’t feel at all out of place in Bullfinch’s Mythology. The legend of the early Amazons finds an origin for Wonder Woman’s mother, Hippolyte, as she seeks out the Amazons with the aid of a goddess. DeConnick’s story poetically establishes the beginnings of the seventh tribe of Amazons. Artist Gene Ha renders the tale for the page in gorgeous visuals that take on an etherial stained glass quality thanks to colorist Wesley Wong.
Hippolyte has been searching for quite a long time. One night finds her in the company of Artemis--Goddess of the Hunt. Hippolyte asks Artemis’ aid in finding the mysterious Amazons. She’s about to receive that aid...and she might find more than she bargained for as a simple quest soon blossoms into leadership that she had never requested. The never-ending quest of the Amazons continues. Revenge against those who would enslave others is all well and good, but what happens when the gods themselves discover a group of warriors who had been summoned into being by the goddesses?
DeConnick casts a sharp light into the psyche of Hippolyte with the second issue of the series. The future queen of Themyscira is given a suitably magical set of interactions with the first Amazons. DeConnick’s dialogue is crisp and poetic. The conversation between Hyppolite and the goddess Artemis has quick and dreamy wit about it. The sharp assertiveness of the future queen shines through the conversation that leads to her queendom. It’s a supremely graceful arc of history that engages emotions on many levels. There’s a satisfying complexity written into the course of events that speaks to something far more intricate than first meets the eyes on-page and panel.
It’s not often that gods are given the full potential of their divine stature on page, stage, or screen. Gene Ha and Wesley Wong do a brilliant job of granting the intensity of the immensity of a godlike presence. Ha plays with very sharply-constructed symmetries. Hera herself resides within a geometric golden spiral in both peace and anger. Wong’s colors provide sumptuous depth to the page. The mortal end of the drama is held up quite well on its own pages. Ha and Wong grant Hippolyte a sternly heroic look even as she confronts the first Amazons...clearly beings of far greater power than her own.
DeConnick’s re-imagining of the origin of the Amazons continues to refine a story that echoes back over 80 years to Marston and Peter’s original tale. Every time the story gets told again, it’s a bit different. This time around, it feels much more firmly rooted in ancient Greek mythology legends than it ever has before. (The issue even opens with prayers to the seven goddesses.) There is a powerful gravity to this history that echoes through the second volume in the series.
